Barrette.



A. .l. DAVEY.

BARRETTE.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. 28. 1912.

mw w o Patented July 27, 1915.

WITNESSES l/W/ENTOR ALBERT J'. DAVEY, 0F BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

BARRETTE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented July 2? 1915.

Application filed February 28, 1912. Serial No. 680,385.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALBERT J. DAVEY, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the city of Boston, county of Suffolk, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Barrettes, set forth in the following specification.

This invention relates to an improved fastener for barrettes, commonly used for ornamental and other purposes in ladies hair dressing.

According to good practice it is preferred that the entire barrette construction comprise solely non-metallic material such as celluloid, bone, tortoise shell and the like. The tongue for fastening a barrette to the hair is commonly pivoted at one end to the barrette body and a retainer is provided for clasping the free end. This retalner finds its embodiment in the form of a hook. Such a retainer in the form" of a hook must provide suflicient strength to resist the bursting tendency of the confined hair and at the same time should possess sufficient resilience so that the mouth of the hook may be smaller than the entering tongue in order to lock the free end of the latch against accidental removal. The common material from which articles of this character are made is so frail that a retainer of sufficient size to provide the necessary strength is too stiff to provide for the ready locking of the tongue.

An object of the present invention 1s to improve the construction of such a retainer in a manner to provide the exact proportionate strength and resilience desired notwithstanding the fact that the material from which the hook shaped retainer 1s formed inherently lacks these combined qualities. To this end there is contemplated an auxiliary locking part which 1s relied upon solely to provide the necessary resilience while a major portion of the hook carries said locking part and cooperates with it by direct contact therewith, so as to impart to it the necessary strength against bursting which is not inherent in the locking part alone.

I The above and further objects of the 1nvention are set forth in the following claim which should be read in connection with this specification which has reference to illustrative embodiment of the invention, shown in the accompanying drawlngs,

which form a part of this application, and in which,-

Figure 1 is a perspective view of the rear side of a barrette provided with a tongue retainer constructed in accordance with this invention; and Fig. 2 is an enlarged elevatlonal View of said retainer showing the tongue and parts of the body portion of the barrette in transverse section substantially 011 the plane of line 11-11 of Fig. 1, said figure illustrating in dotted lines the position assumed by the end of the hook during the passage of the tongue into and out of the mouth of the retainer.

Referring particularly to the drawings the reference numeral 1 indicates the base or body piece of the barrette which piece may be of any desired contour or may be ornamented in any of the artistic ways common to the art.

Fixed to the rear surface of the body piece 1 near one end thereof is the standard 2 carrying the pin 3 upon which is pivotally mounted the tongue 4 which may be given the usual curvature as shown in Fig. 1. Near the opposite end of the body piece 1 is the retainer 5, which is shown comprising a U-shaped piece of barrette material attached along one leg as of the U to the body 1 so that the other leg 7) and the connecting part 0 form a hook with a laterally open mouth (Z for the entrance of the tongue 1.

One of the legs is provided with an independent overlying resilient portion to facilitate the entrance of the tongue 4 through the mouth 3 which is smaller than the tongue 4 and then to lock the latch within the retainer. In Figs. 1 and 2 the embodiment of this overlying portion is a thin inwardly extending finger 6 separated from the leg 6 by the slot 7. The mouth d is outwardly as well as inwardly flared as in dicated. In this embodiment the leg at provides an extensive surface for attachment to the body 1 under the leg Z) but it is not necessary that the legs a and 6 overlie one another.

To lock the tongue 4 in the retainer 5, its free end 10 is pressed laterally into the mouth d of the retainer so that the independently resilient portion overlying the leg 6 yields to allow the free end 9 to snap home into the hook-like retainer, where it is held firmly by the resilience of this portion against accidental removal.

In the embodiment of the invention illustrated the independently resilient tongue 6 is protected by the leg 6 which may be made end of said tongue, said retainer comprising a rigid hook extending laterally from said body piece and adapted to receive the free end of said tongue, said hook having an inwardly directed resilient finger lying between the hook proper and said body piece and making the width of the entrance into said hook less than the thickness of said free end of said tongue, whereby the working pressure of said tongue upon said resilient finger is resisted directly by said hook proper as a reinforcement and whereby said resilient finger operates to lock the free end of said tongue against accidental disengage lnent from said hook.

In witness whereof, I have signed my name to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

ALBERT J. DAVEY.

Witnesses:

HENRY T. NELSON, HELEN F. MCDONALD.

' Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. .C. 

